How do the technologies we use every day affect our state(s) of mind? One of the country’s leading commentators on the information culture ponders the conundrum of connectedness, and offers a new philosophy of life in a world of screens.

William Powers is one of the country's leading commentators on the information culture.  A former staff writer for The Washington Post, his writing on media, technology and other subjects has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, McSweeney's, The Guardian and many other publications.  He created The New Republic's first media column and for years wrote an influential weekly column for Atlantic Media's National Journal.  He is a two-time winner of the National Press Club's Arthur Rowse Award for best American media commentary.  Hamlet's Blackberry is his first book.

David L. Ulin is book editor of the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, and the editor of Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, LA Weekly, Los Angeles, and National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."